22. Matty
Chapter twenty-two
Matty
Somewhere in the couple of months since Omar started at Piedmont, we’d fallen into a comfortable routine. On days when we could finagle our schedules to aligning, we met in the cafeteria for lunch. It wasn’t sexy or exciting—and the food was miserable compared to Omar’s amazing cooking—but it was time together, a moment of calm in our otherwise chaotic professional lives. We talked of patients and the insanity nurses see. We talked of doctors and how long and thick the broomstick some of them used to wedge up their tight, puckering assholes was. Our conversations rarely held great weight and were often smothered in laughter and utter silliness.
Lately, Omar had shifted our seating arrangement, moving from the chair across the table to the one diagonal to mine. He even let our knees bump and brush. A couple of days ago, he gripped my hand beneath the table and held it while we ate. That was a bit awkward, as I was eating a burger and two hands were required to do the sandwich justice, but there was no way I was letting go.
His playful smile told me he knew it, too.
I still had a touch of dating whiplash.
When we’d first met, Omar had played the innocent, awkward, introverted rookie. And he didn’t just act like a rookie at Piedmont; he acted like a boy who’d forgotten how to date and was terrified to relearn those lessons.
And then, out of the clear blue, on a night when I was wiped out and not expecting anything more than falling asleep during a Netflix marathon, he jumped my bones.
Well, bone, to be specific.
And damn, if he didn’t jump it good.
I couldn’t remember the last time a guy sucked me so thoroughly. When I came, it was like a geyser set loose on the world—but even that didn’t stop him. Omar drank me down and kept going until my cock was so sensitive it tickled every time he went down on it. I had to pry the crazy man loose lest my precious member fall off or something.
That would’ve been a sight. Me naked. Omar on his knees. My cock rolling around like some screw dropped while building an IKEA cabinet.
Jesus, I needed a vacation—or to get laid more often. Yeah, it was probably the latter.
Omar had stepped out of his shadow when we were together in private, but publicly, he remained the demur, almost timid man I’d known from the start. I thought that was so odd.
How could he be so, I don’t know, commanding at home only to morph into a wallflower in public?
Was it his upbringing? Did growing up in the wake of a great man turn Omar into someone who didn’t think he deserved the spotlight? Did he plan to stay in the background despite his parents living a world away? Was that even healthy?
At some point, didn’t he need to learn to stand up for himself?
That thought lingered as I watched Sierra pick her lunch at the counter.
Omar and I had become close, far closer than I would have imagined possible in such a short time. Still, I had sheltered poor Omar from my irreverent friends. Sisi was a lot to handle, and Elliot could be so stoic one might’ve thought the beefy guy had turned to stone. I loved the pair to death, but the thought of subjecting Omar to their interrogation—and have no doubt, that was what it would be—made even me squeamish.
And yet, there could only be so much sheltering before the storm visited the shore.
Sisi settled into her seat across from Omar and diagonal to me. We were surrounded by doctors, nurses, and patients’ family members.
My heart was frozen in anticipation of how Sisi might make Omar crawl under the table.
“So, you are a baby nurse?” she asked without preamble, popping a French fry into her mouth.
Omar nodded. “NICU.”
“They do not trust you with the sick ones yet, no? You are still Level One?”
My eyes popped wide. I wanted to barf.
Her words sounded more like an accusation than a question, though I knew Sisi well enough to understand it was simply her blunt demeanor and not any intent to be brash or threatening. She had a heart of gold despite her gutter tongue.
“Uh, yes?” Omar said, clearly unsure where she was headed. “I worked in the ER at Grady, so this is my first time in a NICU. It makes sense for me to walk before I run.”
Sierra cocked her head as if considering, then popped another fry and stared, unblinking, through Omar.
He wilted beneath her gaze, glancing toward me, as if there was a force on Earth that could save him from Sierra’s glare.
There wasn’t.
“And you have been dating my Matty for what, two months?” Her chewing was deliberate, steady and even chomps that could’ve split wood. This was either about to go really well or Omar was going to run from the cafeteria and never return.
“That sounds right. Now that we are doing lunch most days, I have lost count. Do you know?” He looked to me.
I blinked, my face as blank as my mind.
Was this a trick question, like when a wife asked her husband for the date on which they met or where they had their first kiss? There were no right answers, only bad or terrible guesses. No guy knew such things. We weren’t built to retain that level of detail. It’s why we had women.
Um, but we were gay.
Wives weren’t part of our equation.
Were the rules the same? In our case, which of us was supposed to record the important dates, times, and life-facts? Was I supposed to know this answer? Would Omar judge my ignorance? My flightiness? My lack of attention to detail?
Panic swelled in my chest, a very real, very tangible ball of cottony barbed wire poking and prodding at the inside of my lungs, daring me to breathe.
I gulped back air.
Omar reached across the table and took my hand, his eyes gentle, his mouth forming a sweet smile. “I don’t know either. It’s all right.”
I breathed again.
“And you still haven’t fucked?” Sierra asked, raising her straw to her mouth and taking a long sip of Coke. From the placid look on her face, she might’ve just asked about the weather or the latest episode of Housewives rather than our sex life.
“We’re waiting,” I said, hoping a simple answer might save Omar.
It did not.
“For what?” she asked, setting her Coke down with a thud and returning her focus to her fries. “You’re both hot. Well, Omar is. Matty, you’re cute, which is fine, if you’re into cute, which Omar clearly is. On top of looks, you like each other. More than like, if my guess is correct.”
She paused a moment, then stabbed a fry toward Omar. “You should be trying to make babies.”
I wanted to die.
Right there in the cafeteria.
Die and not wake up . . . or be resurrected . . . or whatever would make me alive again after dying of horror and shame.
Yeah, permanent death, that was what Sisi inspired.
To his credit, Omar didn’t flinch.
He popped a fry of his own, locked eyes with Sisi, and said in his most diplomatic tone, “I plan to fuck the ever-loving life out of your best friend. In fact, I plan to fuck him so hard he has to take time off from work so his man-pussy can recover. His legs might need some work, too, all bowlegged and tired.”
He glanced from Sisi to me, then back, another grin teasing his lips. “We might do it up against a wall or bending him over the couch. We might do it in the bed or up against the vanity in his bathroom. Hell, we might do it in the medicine closet, if I can distract my boss long enough to slip my thick, hard, dripping cock past his scrubs and into his tight, fiery hole.”
Sisi blinked, fry halfway to her mouth.
“And the car. Bugger me. Yes, we have to screw in the car. The back seat is probably best, but my boy might like it in the front. And yes, I did just call him my boy, which in gay speak means I am protective of him and will cut a bitch who hurts him.”
“I didn’t—”
Omar wasn’t done. “Do you think he’ll squish while running around the ER with my cum up his ass? Will that be distracting? Will he get into trouble?”
Sisi sat there frozen, hand with fry, mouth agape.
I might’ve been more paralyzed than her.
Omar returned to his lunch, eating happily, acting as though he hadn’t just shut up the un-shutupable.
“I . . . I like this one,” Sierra declared, waving her fry in the air. “He has fire and heart, not necessarily in that order. On my island, those two things are life, and he has them. Matthew, you have my approval.”
“That’s a relief,” Omar said without looking up. “Here, I thought I was going to have to bang your best friend without your blessing.”
Sisi sat back, her mouth again hanging open.
I had to cover mine lest a laugh escape and earn me her evil glare.
“Well, that was descriptive ,” Sisi said, dropping the fry on her plate as though it had offended her somehow, then turning me. “Sounds like you’d better loosen that tight ass up. The pharaoh is coming to visit.”
I started to respond, though I had no idea what I would’ve said because Omar beat me to the punch.
“Pharaoh? That’s a good one. In my culture, that makes me more than just a man. It also makes me a god.” He tapped his finger against his mouth. “Matty, you may worship me. I will allow it. Sisi, you may watch, if you are so inclined.”
“No, she may not!” I said, finally finding my voice. “I mean, Sisi, I adore you. You know that. But watching Omar—”
“Fuck you into the middle ages?” she supplied.
“Yes, that! ” I snapped. “Exactly, that and whatever else he may choose to do . . . and I hope that list is long . . . and thick . . . and . . . anyway. You are not going to watch us. Get that out of your head.”
She shrugged and motioned toward Omar. “He brought it up, not me. Besides, based on everything I’ve heard here, he’s the one wearing the pants. Or would that be gown? I am unsure what a pharaoh would wear these days.”
Omar chuckled. “Nothing, if he’s lucky.”
“All right, good lunch, everybody,” I said, standing and gripping my tray. “I just realized how late it is. My shift—”
“Doesn’t resume for another twenty minutes,” Sisi offered, sipping her Coke and grinning behind her straw.
Omar finished the last of his meal and stood, drawing both our attention.
“I believe there is a medicine closet that needs cleaning in the NICU. Care to help me?”
Sisi doubled over.
I turned four shades of red and tried, desperately, not to drop my tray.
Omar wiggled his bushy brows, then winked at Sisi and said, “It was wonderful meeting you, Sierra. You are every bit as enchanting as Matty led me to believe.”